Four Twenty Five – Jean-Georges' stage on Park Avenue, built by Norman Foster

Four Twenty Five occupies the first two floors of a slim Park Avenue office tower, the restaurant Jean-Georges Vongerichten opened only steps from Lafayette, the dining room where he began his New York career in 1986 — a full-circle moment, by his own account, as he marked his 62nd restaurant worldwide. The building itself is the draw before a single plate arrives: it was designed by Lord Norman Foster of Foster+Partners, the Pritzker Prize-winning architect, and the restaurant unfolds across a ground-floor cocktail lounge and a mezzanine dining room suspended above the avenue. It is selected in the MICHELIN Guide. Behind a glass wall, executive chef Jonathan Benno — the first American-born and trained chef to earn three Michelin stars, won during his years running the kitchen at Per Se — translates Vongerichten's global, citrus-and-spice instincts into a menu that moves from caviar and crudo to pasta, wagyu and black bass.

01The room and the setting

Guests enter at street level into a cocktail lounge with ceilings that soar 45 feet, dominated by a 24-foot painting by the American artist Larry Poons, titled Hunch, that runs the length of the back wall. A sweeping staircase — timber-panelled, cantilevered over the bar below — leads up to the mezzanine dining room, an enclosed, intimate space built to float above Park Avenue with its own glass-fronted show kitchen.

The dining room itself has been compared to the mid-century glamour of The Grill in the Seagram Building: a grand, carpeted staircase, heavy linens, table lamps and swaying drapery, built for a room that seats roughly 84 at full capacity. L&L Holding Company, developer of the 425 Park Avenue tower, is also a partner in the restaurant, which helps explain why the design feels less like a tenant's fit-out and more like an extension of Foster's building.

02The chef

Jean-Georges Vongerichten grew up on the outskirts of Strasbourg in Alsace and trained in a work-study programme at Auberge de l'Ill under Paul Haeberlin, before working under Paul Bocuse and Master Chef Louis Outhier at L'Oasis in the south of France. He then spent years in Asia — at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, the Meridien in Singapore and the Mandarin in Hong Kong — developing the light broths, fruit essences and herbal vinaigrettes that still define his cooking.

Insider tip

Dinner nightly; breakfast and lunch weekdays; bar opens 11:45am on weekdays.

Day to day, the stoves belong to Jonathan Benno, who leads the brigade behind the open kitchen's glass wall. Benno spent years as culinary No. 1 under Thomas Keller at Per Se, becoming the first American-born and trained chef to win three Michelin stars there, before running Italian kitchens at Lincoln Ristorante and his own namesake restaurant, Benno — experience that shows up in the pasta list as much as in the raw bar.

03The cooking

Petrossian Caviar JG Select arrives over a smoked egg yolk and crispy potato cake; Wagyu Beef Tartare is dressed with kimchee, avocado, sesame and scallion; Foie Gras Terrine comes with spiced fig jam and warm madeleines.

Mains run from Steamed Black Bass in a spiced mushroom broth with lime, sesame and rosemary, to a Veal Chop with herb crumb, bitter greens and orange, and two cuts of Snake River Farms wagyu — filet mignon and sirloin — both finished with pistachio-crumbed broccoli and aged balsamic vinegar. Behind the scenes, the kitchen leans on the Union Square Greenmarket, sustainable seafood suppliers and ethically raised poultry and meat, continuing a sourcing discipline Vongerichten has built into his restaurants worldwide.

04What to order

Start with the caviar, whichever form it takes that night, or the Wagyu Beef Tartare; move to the Steamed Black Bass or the Veal Chop if the table wants a shared centrepiece. Dessert is where the kitchen shows its precision — a chocolate almond torte with black cardamom crémeux, tonka bean whipped ganache, buckwheat caramel and marzipan ice cream, or a strawberry vacherin layered with lemonade meringue, petit beurre pastry and elderflower-strawberry-jasmine sorbet.

05When to go and booking

Dinner is served seven nights a week, with breakfast and lunch added Monday through Friday in the main dining room; the ground-floor bar and lounge opens from 11:45am on weekdays. The restaurant takes part in NYC Restaurant Week with a three-course lunch and dinner, and runs its own seasonal set menus for Thanksgiving and other holidays — worth checking before a visit, since format and price change with the calendar.

06The neighbourhood

Four Twenty Five sits on a stretch of Park Avenue that has rebuilt itself since the pandemic into Manhattan's most fully-occupied commercial boulevard, alongside the reopened Casa Lever and other new Midtown East openings. It is also, for Vongerichten, personal geography: the restaurant stands a short walk from the site of Lafayette, where his New York story started nearly four decades earlier.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.